We got to talking about designer drugs the other day.

I wouldn’t be too hot on the subject myself; to me, mephedrone sounds like a particularly humourless Transformer. Besides, I’m not one for designer anything; all that size zero and ludicrously-priced crocodile skin is not good for the soul. Designer Drugs just sound too exclusive, like you’re not invited to the party, like you’re not trusted to get the buzz. I know what designer drugs are, mind – twisting past the Long Arm, one molecule at a time – but that doesn’t mean I have to get a kick out of the semantics involved. Now if they called them Ropey Opiates, or Slippery Smack, that might grease up me dance pole, but designer drugs? Dear me, no. I’m a socialist.

And what would we be doing with designer drugs in Ireland, anyway? Y’know what this is? More Celtic Tiger buffoonery, that’s what it is. More Ideas Above Our Stations, when the only stations we have any right to … er … station ourselves under are the stations of the One True Cross, which I think was a boyband this one time.

“We’ve had a long and  technicoloured history with the Funny Stuff”, was my argument to my gathered peeps. “Why should we go all hydrochloric butephedrine on our nights out just because it’s slightly more legal? Sure it’s not been tested, this legal stuff. You can’t trust it, it’s not traditional. Plus it’s still been made in an old Belfast Sink in someone’s granny’s coal shed.” I didn’t mention my own granny, because all she has in her coal shed are spiders.

The homies nodded, or gurned, or blinked or whatever it is that young people do nowadays. That’s the other thing about designer drugs, you see. They’re all so depressingly subtle.

Times were that drugs were theatrical, and worthy because of it. You’d never find W.B.Yeats or Shane MacGowan or David Norris getting off quietly on something ordered over the internet, dropped in a carefully-measured oral dose and experienced at a chilled loft party on a Wednesday night. What’s the fucking point, you might ask? Why get a slightly-elevated-temperature over a designer drug – something clinical, predictable, as functional as an Englishman - when we have perfectly marvellous traditional mind-benders here on our slobbering, wavering doorsteps?

Historically-appropriate options include …

Magic Mushrooms: Natural as the day is dank. Illegal too, thanks to our Crusader For Health, Mary Harney, who has prosecuted whole fields for cultivating them. Sure you can’t get more hallucinogenic than that logical black hole.

Ergot: All you need is some rotting rye, so any health food shop should be able to assist. Ergot is like, unrefined LSD, man; no hydrogenated phats here, let me tell you! Plus it’s incredibly entertaining; it makes people speak in tongues, limbs go black and fall off, and Saint Anthony attributed his success with demonic encounters down to his fondness for toasted rye with jam of a winter’s morning. And we love Saint Anthony in Ireland. He’s the patron saint of lost things – most commonly, minds.

Gone Off Spuds: Did you know that the humble spud is related to belladonna, without which Bacchus would have been a common librarian? This is why yer Mammy told you never to eat green potatoes. Not only would they give you the squits something shocking, but they might have enticed you to witchcraft, orgies, and the nearest council estate ladette. It’s a well-known fact since about six seconds ago that the British orchestrated our Potato Famine in order to stop us fornicating like the world’s most long-term-goal-focused army. Spuds: Respect them. They’re bigger than you.

Money: Money does funny things to an Irishman. It drives us into an uncontrollable state of erotic euphoria – there’s nothing an Irishman with a few extra quid won’t buy. Holiday homes in the Swiss Alps? Matching SUVs for each pair of runners on the welcome mat? Life-sized wax sculptures of Linda Martin? All of the above, thanks, and give the change to the poor box. What? No change with VISA? Your loss, St. Vincent De Paul! YOINK!

Alcohol: Speaking as someone who once phoned her Mam at three am and tried to introduce her to the nearest friendless hobo, I have to ask that we don’t forget the potency of a Bad Pint in our search for zen-like brain-planing. We all know someone who dived headfirst down the stairs in clumsy mirth, fell asleep on the phone, or answered an observation about how odd it was that Wayne from Wayne’s World was only growing pubic hair at the age of 35 with an unfocused, “And what did everyone do?” Perhaps we know someone who’s done all three. Isn’t that right, Swe.Ge?

In short, I guess what I’m getting at is … well, we don’t need to be chic, or functional, or clever when we banjax ourselves by way of entertainment. Time-honoured methods are just as good, and don’t make you sound like you’ve just stepped out of a Ross O’Carroll Kelly novel. Maybe it makes you sound like you’ve just written one, instead. Therein lies the difference, amigos. Be creative in your madness; it helps to pass the time.

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Is it Christmas yet, then?

Sweary wishes it to be known that anyone who takes this blog post seriously in any way – for example, tries to cultivate ergot on the nearest loaf, or refine green potatoes for next year’s Oxegen Festival – would want their heads checked. I’m not a chemist, and you’re not that impressionable. Got it?